northclifflogs | OPEN | this winter brings all the cold to the yard

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OPEN | this winter brings all the cold to the yard

𝕒 𝕨𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕪 𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕝

surprise!

I. Snow!

A mere week after the grisly discovery in the Deep Forest and the subsequent dispersal of the eerie spectral visitors, all Northcliff Pass residents wake one exceptionally frigid morning to find themselves buried under several feet of snow. It is of the light and fluffy variety--at least for now--which provides no shortage of entertainment for the village children, and means one is less likely to throw one's back out while trying to shovel it clear of doorways and the streets.

That is your first order of business, as it happens: free yourselves from your wintry entrapment. Or don't, if you've got enough food and drink squirrelled away in your tiny peasant house that you don't need to venture out into the elements. The world is your cold, shitty, socially stratified oyster; ditch your responsibilities, sleep in.

II. Fete! at ye olde tavern

All Souls' Day came and went, and nobody can really be blamed for forgetting about it what with the ghosts and the gloomy business of seeing to the bodies. All that aside the Hammer and Spoke seems especially welcoming that first wintry night, once all the snow shovelling is finished and the streets are clear enough for foot traffic again; lit lanterns glow warmly outside the door, and from within come the sounds of joyful music. Fiddles, whistles, a drum, and plenty of laughter; it seems the snow has stranded a troupe of minstrels in the village, which means at least two or three nights of great fun for village residents.

In truth it will take more than a few nights of drunk mischief to lift the pall cast across the village after the previous month's discoveries, but maybe that's why so many people gravitate to the light and levity and warmth of a party. After such a close call with so much death, it's good to remind oneself that there's joy in the world, too.

III. Cramped Quarters

The nights might be filled with good company, food, and drink, but during the day the village has to contend with another frustration: the roads in and out of Northcliff Pass are closed until the snow melts.

This is a common experience--in late December, January, and February. Not so much in November, when farmers are preparing to take their surplus harvest and livestock down the mountain to Cliffside, or when caravans with schedules to keep to are preparing to head east towards Woodsedge. (The only road clear in that direction is guaranteed to take them past Turn--something no one wants to risk.) Even a few late-season pilgrims have found themselves stuck between Gods' Reach at the summit of the mountain, and the creature comforts of Cliffside below.

There's nothing to be done for it, of course, except to endure the unusually crowded streets, the lack of vacancies at the tavern, and the occasional herd of sheep or goats picketed in very odd places.

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It's funny, how you can lose a language for two decades, and yet in a single moment react as though no time has passed at all. "Hyvää iltaa."

Good evening.

It's several seconds before Dain's conscious mind catches up with his habitual greeting, and he stops, and he stares. If he'd had time to think, he might have pretended not to understand -- but no, he can tell his emotions wouldn't have let him. He's quite paralysed with them.

"Who are you?" he manages to ask, his tongue easily switched back to Glennich, unwrapping his headscarf so he can get a better look. The stranger -- no, not a stranger, he wouldn't be a stranger even if Dain had somehow missed the pang of familiarity in his chest. "... Tuo?"

Well, he was more correct than he realized.

The wry, whimsical twist at the corners of Tuo's lips grows lax from surprise, and he grows still before he can offer up the last piece of flat bread quick enough for Alvi... who ruffles his feathers and gives his ear a reproachful nip. Tuo flinches, and, "--ah! You little beast," he scolds, but he gives the last of the bread to the greedy magpie anyway. Then he carefully slips from his perch on the fence and approaches Dain, cautious curiosity brightening his eyes.

A weighted pause, before at last he smiles. "Anja." And, heedless of what it must look like to any bystanders, he steps forward and puts his arms around his oldest friend in a warm embrace. (Alvi, peeved, squawks and flutters back to the fence to preen his feathers indignantly.)

Emotions tangle into a single overwhelming mess. There's a bird -- new, and curious, but Dain will file that thought away for later. There's his own name -- right now, not very important, except where it rings with nostalgia and buried memories. And there's the time, the sheer weight of years passed and old, healed-over acceptance that Tuo might very well be dead -- and that even if he wasn't, the odds of seeing him again were so astronomical as to exist only in the realm of the gods.

But he's here. Here, in this tiny village cut off by snowstorms for half of the year, looking both completely different and utterly identical to the much younger version in Dain's memory, and he can't help but hug back, hard, as though he can squeeze some lost time back into the present.

"It has been," he says quietly into Tuo's shoulder, "such a long time. Have you been here, since Griston?"

Half of a breathless laugh gets squeezed out of him by Dain's tight embrace, but Tuo can endure a lost breath or two for Dain's sake. He smiles into the fabric of his friend's clothes, fisting his fingers in the fabric, then forces himself to draw back just enough so that they might be able to see each other when they speak.

"...Have you been here, since Griston?"

"Oh, no, that would have been dreadfully tedious," he replies, all lightness and whimsy but for the bit of wetness at the corners of his eyes (treacherous tear ducts). He makes an expansive gesture with one hand. "Throw a dart at the map and I daresay I've been wherever it makes its mark, most recently Fairport. I come here during the festival seasons but, as you see," another gesture, "there is precious little of that at the moment."

His words taper off some as he gazes back at his friend; doubtless he could talk circles around him if he so chose, but after so long--

He takes one of Dain's hands and clasps it between both of his. "Come back to my camp," he says softly in their language. "Let's have tea and speak properly, not here where we'll be overheard by all these dim lights." A dig at the dutiful followers of the Path of Light.

Dain laughs, and finds it very difficult to stop. Tedious, Tuo says. Not dangerous. Not hard. Tedious. Like lessons without consequence or carrying more home from the markets than you intended. Part of him feels amazed they never crossed each other's paths in Fairport, despite logic and the size of the city dictating that of course they didn't, it would really have been rather remarkable if they had. Much better to meet here, where there's no one around apart from someone a little way down the street walking as though they've had too much to drink. Fewer witnesses to make Dain's life a little harder, fewer loose ends and difficult questions to answer.

At this, Dain remembers what he's wearing beneath his coat and scarf, and he resists the temptation to make sure it's perfectly hidden. Much harder to resist is the thread of guilt snaking its way through his thoughts.

He understands Tuo, perfectly well. It's just... oddly hard to reply, like Dain's tongue doesn't quite remember the shape of the language. He simply nods, tears overflowing, utterly unable to stop smiling even if he wanted to. Surely he can allow himself this. Surely he can set aside his caution just long enough for a simple, joyful conversation in a language others can't understand.

Dain's tears are like a vice around Tuo's heart, squeezing tight enough to force the wetness from his own eyes. He smiles, pained, and lifts up a sleeve to blot the wetness first from his friend's cheek, and then his own. "Now, now," he chides breathily, trying to compose himself. "I'll have none of that. Come," he adds, then tucks his arm into Dain's and leads him along the road back towards his wagon. (Begrudgingly, Alvi flutters to Tuo's free arm when it is held out expectantly. What an odd trio they must make.)

The wagon itself has been secured just beyond the village walls and within Northcliff Wood, but not beyond the (questionable) barrier of Sands Creek that separates this bit of wood from the Deep Forest. Even in the dim light of the gloaming, the bright red paint that ornaments its wood paneling is eye catching, and the lanterns that dangle from the arch roof would surely cast a warm and inviting glow, if they were lit. A piece of Saaristomeri art, to be sure, though carpentry was never Tuo's strong suite. Someone else must have built it for him.

Alvi flits from Tuo's free arm and up to a perch designed especially for him near the back door and fold-out steps. Tuo smiles blithely. "I should count myself fortunate I have not been burgled yet," he tells Dain, "though I must be courting fate, saying it at all. Here, I shall get the door." He steps away from his friend, key in hand, to unfasten the lock.

"Of course you haven't," Dain replies without thinking, pressing one hand against the painted wood of the wagon like he's halfway worried he might be imagining it and his hand will pass right through. "You have quite a capable guard bird."

Which reminds him of all of the questions he wants to ask, all of which seem important enough to tie for the first spot, none of which will have quick or easy answers. If Tuo hasn't changed, then asking questions will be something of a game, trying to find more and more specific words to ensure that he has no choice but to give a direct response. 'Where does your bird come from' leaves plenty of room for a meandering tale.

But the wagon -- it's beautiful, and familiar. Even in Fairport, Dain hasn't come across much architecture made to be beautiful. Homes are simple and serviceable. Churches are large and intimidating. Other buildings fit somewhere into the vast chasm between, and richer families will pay for elaborate trappings, but almost nothing is built from scratch to be this colourful. It makes Dain abruptly, sharply homesick, in a way he has not been for many years.

"You didn't build this yourself," he remarks in an effort to distract himself. It's very deliberately not a question. "And I'm sure I would have remembered if it fit onto the ship. Where does it come from?"

And what a tale he could tell about Alvi and his injured wing, and the determined wolf cub that had nearly brought their short acquaintanceship to an end! But perhaps another time, on some other night.

"Fairport," he replies, unfastening the lock, and pulls the door open. He reaches inside to fetch a bit of flint, and sets about trying to light the lantern dangling from the small awning of the entryway. "I met a woodworker there who came across the sea with us. We were both in need of work--aha," a slight sound of triumph as the wick finally catches, and Tuo tucks the flint back into place, "--and so we agreed to a trade. He would build my wagon in exchange for tales from our homeland." The little look he spares for Dain near glitters with delight; of course there is a bit of embellishment at work here, but what good tale is complete without polish?

Then his expression warms, and he beckons Dain over. "Come inside, Anja, before you catch your death."

Ah, so a small miracle did occur in Fairport -- just not one involving Dain. That should alarm him, he thinks, that there's a chance he could be recognised in a place more compromising than this, but it's difficult to feel anything more than nostalgia-tinged relief as he steps into the wagon behind Tuo.

A small slice of Saaristomeri, in the very last place Dain would have expected it.

He laughs then, a little too abrupt for the cause to be something innocuous, but genuine all the same. Here he is, keeping cautious every single moment of every single day, and here Tuo is, dragging a beautiful Saaristomeren wagon behind him, taking every single possible opportunity to advertise that he was born somewhere Maireglenne would consider dangerous.

"I don't think I ever want to leave," Dain says quietly. He doesn't sit down yet, instead running his hands over nearly any surface he can reach, drinking in the artwork. Notably, he hasn't yet taken off his coat.

There is a horse to do the dragging for him. That makes things much easier.

Tuo gives Dain his space to reminisce, and moves nimbly about his home's interior lighting a few more candles and opening a small window to allow Alvi back inside. (A magpie could conceivably make a nest for himself out in the wilderness, but Alvi has grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle and won't give it up for any reason.) He kindles a small fire in the wood-burning stove affixed to one of the wagon's walls, and then places a kettle above it to warm.

"I don't think I ever want to leave."

He turns then, reaching up to carefully unwind his head scarf from around his head, and watches Dain in profile for a silent moment, his expression hovering somewhere between affection and melancholy. As is his custom, he adopts humour instead, and smiles blithely. "Well we were affianced, once upon a time," he reminds Dain with an artful flourish of one hand. "I suppose a chieftain might judge that you have a claim to whatever is mine. Do you take milk?" This, referring to the tea, of course. He lifts up a little tin of the stuff, eyebrows arched.

Another laugh, this one startled appreciation. "We were children," Dain says, as though Tuo might have forgotten. "Using that as justification feels far too much like blackmail. Besides, a home like this deserves to be taken traveling, and I..." He looks around the lit candles and the wood stove. "... well, it needs more attention than I can give."

It's odd, remembering that there was a time in Dain's life when his future had been joyfully decided for him.

Meanwhile: tea. The journey through the pass may have been easier if Dain knew milk and tea was waiting at the end of it. "Yes please," he says as he moves slowly toward an open seat. This also brings him a little closer to the bird, who seems to take up residence inside the wagon with Tuo, and Dain carefully extends a hand to let the little creature inspect it. It's only polite to introduce oneself to all of one's hosts.

Alvi cocks his head to the side so that one intelligent corvid eye can examine Dain scrupulously. He makes no move to interact with the extended hand, which is probably for the best.

"He will warm up to you," Tuo says from where he stands by the stove, looking between the pair of them fondly. "Alvi is far warier of strangers than I am."

At length the kettle begins to whistle, and Tuo lifts it from the heat and dispenses hot water into two mugs. These, along with the milk, he transports to the low table beside the chairs, and sets things out neatly for Dain to make use of, or not, as he sees fit. Tuo himself is about to sit before he notices the coat and scarf that Dain still wears. "Oh," he starts, "let me hang those up--" Surely this won't be something Dain will object to.

The hand Dain had extended to Alvi quickly retracts to fold over his coat -- a reflexive, unthinking reaction, accompanied by the smallest of flinching movements away from Tuo. "It's fine, I --"

But he stops, and consciously puts his hand down in his lap instead. It will grow very warm in here very quickly, and it's ludicrous to try and pretend otherwise. Dain takes a moment to steel himself, as long as he dares; then he gives Tuo a small and sheepish grin, and unwraps his scarf and shrugs off his coat.

It's not a story that belongs in Saaristomeri. But it's the story Dain has, and he can't simply pretend it doesn't exist. Tuo would discover the truth sooner or later, and it would be far better for him to hear it directly from Dain where explanations can be freely given.

Tuo goes abruptly still, like a deer that has just caught the scent of a wolf. His eyes drop from Dain's face to his clothing, taking in all the unmistakeable accoutrements, placing them in their upsetting context.

"You're a Shepherd."

It's not a question, or an accusation, not really. But already Tuo can feel his pulse racing beneath his skin, quick as a bird's in flight, and he looks around at all the subtle but undeniable marks of his heresy that colour the interior of his home: an apocryphal verse from scripture here, Night's initial lovingly illuminated there. No, it isn't his time yet, he hasn't even begun to accomplish the great and dreadful mission that has been his burden to bear since infancy--

"Anja," he starts, and if his voice breaks a little from emotion, surely he cannot be blamed for it, "I don't understand..!"

There isn't very much room in the wagon, or Dain would put a little distance between them, for Tuo's sake. Fear is an impulse dedicated to survival, to seeking safety by any means necessary, and distance can help someone to feel safe. Distance is often all Dain can give.

As it stands, he stays very still himself, hands in the air -- not quite above his head, but certainly where Tuo can see them, empty and palms up.

"You're safe with me," he says. Quiet, sure, and simple, appealing to emotion, not to logic, ending with a promise. "You will always be safe with me."

"You're safe with me. You will always be safe with me."

It's an effective appeal. Tuo does not relax, but he does not leap from his seat despite the tension in his limbs and the clearly visible whites of his eyes. Instead he stares back at his childhood friend, struggling to reconcile all the years of trust and affection that they carried together as children--a legacy inherited from their parents, no doubt--with the stridently diverging paths of their adolescence and adulthoods. For a moment Tuo feels acutely infuriated by his own naive stupidity, for having assumed that the man before him was the same gentle-hearted boy he had grown up alongside in Fiapori. And yet--

You will always be safe with me.

He closes his eyes and lifts both hands to cover his mouth and nose, then curls the fingers of one hand around the opposite wrist to still their trembling. His blood is awash with adrenaline with no outlet for the frantic energy. "Even if I were not," he admits, breaking the long silence, "there is precious little I could do about it now." His smile is thin, then. Resigned to whatever Dain chooses to do.

He reaches for the coat again, to take it and hang it up, if Dain will part with it. The simple, familiar courtesy will give him something to with himself, at least.

Dain lets the coat go. There's no reason to keep it now.

The trouble here is he doesn't know what to say next. That's an old, familiar, well-worn trail -- there's so much he can't say, and so many growing friendships that ended the moment they learned who Dain was. Even if one has nothing to hide, friendship with someone in the church is a prickly proposition most would rather have nothing to do with. But Tuo... isn't most people, and the conversation won't simply end here in as polite a manner as possible.

For a moment, Dain indulges in the image of spending an evening confiding in his old friend every single surge of disquiet during his lessons, every single time someone on the Path of Light said something wrong, every time he'd had to bite his tongue, every time he'd laughed without thinking and nearly betrayed himself. But in all those years, he's never said out loud what his true intentions are, and it still feels dangerous to do that regardless of what language he's using.

The silence stretches a little past Tuo's resigned reply; then Dain smiles. "How about this? An answer for an answer. I'll tell you more about why, if you tell me what made you leave Griston so suddenly."

Dain's coat joins Tuo's on a hook next to the small entrance to his wagon; he's momentarily transfixed by the sight of their clothes like that, side by side in a Saaristomeren home, exactly as their parents had expected them to be a lifetime ago. What would that life have looked like? How long would they have been married? Who would their wife had been? They could never have had children of their own, but perhaps, somehow--

"... I'll tell you more about why, if you tell me what made you leave Griston so suddenly."

"I was forced," he replies quietly, his fingers dropping from the sleeve of Dain's coat to rest at his side. He turns to look back at his friend, his expression drawn and without his usual wry artifice. "By the priests and laysisters. I was forced to leave." At that, he moves quietly back to his seat and folds himself into it, then reaches in silence to pour a bit of milk into his mug, and then into Dain's.

That there is no lengthy story to accompany such a revelation is telling; the truth is difficult to extract from Tuo, but when he delivers it, he doesn't soften the blow.

It is, in its own way, a thorough answer. Even if Dain wouldn't have understood at the time -- and he doesn't think he would have, not when Tuo had family and safety so nearby -- he certainly understands it now, after seeing similar treatment from the opposite side more often than he can count. An ultimatum is seen by some as the more merciful option. It's rarely seen that way by the victims.

"You didn't tell us that," he says. Not an accusation; more a sad statement of fact. "I had no idea. You disappeared, and we thought -- I thought you were..."

Dead.

There's a question in there somewhere. Dain doesn't want to make Tuo feel obligated to answer it, as trying to find the words to express it may imply. He cradles his tea and covers his trailing silence by taking small, careful sips from it.

"...You disappeared, and we thought -- I thought you were..."

Gently, Tuo says, "I know." A pause. "But you know I cannot ignore my calling."

There is no point in offering an apology, not when he knows that he would make the same choice again if he had to. Perhaps that is where the argument might arise: the necessity of the abandonment of everyone he loved, all he had left of Saaristomeri after the typhoon, based on a childhood dream. (It is more than just a dream, to him, and the typhoon Night's scathing rebuke of his inaction. He won't make that mistake again.)

He brings up the mug to drink from it once, then carefully sets it on the table. When he speaks again, his voice is carefully measured. "I thought it would be the kinder thing to do, to let you believe I had died of the sweating sickness with the other children. I believed I would be dead soon anyway." At last he looks up to meet Dain's eyes; his own are shadowed with resigned sadness. "But there is no kindness in hurting the ones you love. I deserve your anger, Anja, and if I have pushed you to this.." There he trails off and gestures, wordless, at the Shepherd's clothes that his friend wears.

Edited 2019-11-26 17:26 (UTC)

For a short while, Dain only stares at Tuo. To be honest, he'd forgotten about the arguments they used to have regarding Tuo's calling. It all comes back in a rush, leaving him very nearly lightheaded, and his reaction turns out to be entirely the opposite of anger -- it's laughter.

Not mean laughter, or dismissive laughter. Quite the contrary, there's flashes in it of the Anja Tuo used to know, a young teenager full of gentle hope and optimism for the future, finding the unanticipated good in nearly any situation he encounters.

"Typerä Tuo," he manages at last, bright and fond, at odds with his words. "It wasn't. It's never the kinder thing, not to know what truly happened. But you're not the reason I became a Shepherd -- unless that would finally convince you that you don't have to do anything on your own."

The laughter, his old, mocking moniker so lovingly delivered--it startles tears back into Tuo's eyes, and he needs a moment as Dain speaks to look away, to fetch out a cloth to blot the tears away before they can fall.

Dain is right, of course. Perhaps that is what makes his heart ache so: knowing that he will do the unkind thing again, one day.

"Tell me the reason, then," he says at last, and reaches across the space between them to find his old friend's hand and clasp it firmly. That touch, and the earnestness of his gaze, communicate clearly what he doesn't say aloud: I missed you, too.

Living through the last decade has been an exercise in careful, constant restraint. Patience only takes you so far; more important is knowing when not to be patient, when to act and when to sabotage so action can't be taken. And yet, through all of that, Dain never once said out loud how he truly feels or what he truly believes, and though this is likely the safest place in all of Maireglenne to say it, habit forces him to take several seconds simply to unstick his throat.

Tuo's hand on his helps a great deal. Dain looks up into his friend's earnest eyes, and the unbidden smile that comes to his face makes it easier to answer.

"At first," he says, "it was because I thought I could change things, from the inside. The orphanage encouraged it, at the time -- training for the priesthood, I mean -- and I thought I'd be able to change some minds. It didn't really work, of course. I'm... it would take more than one person, to tackle a challenge like that. By the time I realised it, it was dangerous to turn back. I had to make a choice, and I chose this, because Shepherds are the ones who decide who lives and who dies. And --"

He pauses, his tongue once again betraying him, and drinks a little more of the tea.

"-- and at my last count, Tuo, I've rescued thirteen people."

Changing the minds and hearts of the Glennich--of course Anja would take on such an impossible task, and embrace it. Tuo's lips twist slightly at those words, likely betraying plenty of how he would have approached such an undertaking. But then:

"...and at my last count, Tuo, I've rescued thirteen people."

"Rescued," he repeats faintly, the implications of what his friend says sinking in. His eyes grow very wide. "You're saving witches from the pyre." Or the gallows--or the knife. The Shepherds have never been particularly picky in what means they use to commit murder.

Again, it takes Dain a moment to answer; but he nods. "Yes."

His heart's pounding, prepared for escape, after years of being trained into recognising confession as suicide. But there's relief somewhere in there too, and maybe that's what's responsible for his hands shaking. He's safe, here, or as safe as he can possibly be, and it's the recognition of safety that makes it clear to Dain how little he's had of it. If this weren't Tuo, he wouldn't know what to do next.

"Anonymously," he goes on, "where I can. It's not enough, it's never enough, but -- it's thirteen more people safe than there would be, if I wasn't trying."

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